Being an anglo member of Gen Y in the Kweebeck of this era dictates that you get all the regular Gen Y challenges plus you get blamed for language wounds which you did not even have the pleasure of inflicting.
So that brings me to this play Dragonfly of Chicoutimi now on at the Espace Go!, a French-venue on the Main, across from Casa del Popolo. The play is a one-man script but staged here with five actors sharing the lines, separated by square frames on a raised stage. Their accents are Quebecois but the words are English. So I kept wondering if the franco crowd could fully grasp the story. Apparently they did as the actors took three bows (not rare in French shows, whereas English audiences, usually older, grab for their coats, never giving more than one turn at applause).
The protagonist is a typical franco boy, one of nine children raised in Chicoutimi, a town he describes as boring. The narrator is split in five, (from right to left a short-haired guy who re-enacts descriptions of the mother, a tall rocker with a pony tail and Iggy Pop abs, a slight blonde in a sharkskin suit, a cowboy with a moustache and finally a bearded guy who mostly lies on stage, basket-case style.)
The narrative describes growing up in Chicoutimi, first with some self-aggrandizement, but later corrected to apologetically amend the dishonestly rosy spin. Without giving away too much, the story tells of how he ended up speaking English after having a horrendous dream. That dream, in turn, was inspired by a horrific encounter he had when 16 playing in the woods with a childhood friend who was only 12 but still dominant. That friend had an English Canadian father and out of the blue one day the friend started abusing him horribly, while speaking English. The English guy did not fare too well after that moment nor did the protagonist.
The political message is clear, The Henglatch is not to be trusted and that it would be a tragedy if the French people of Quebec started all speaking the language of Joe Pesci. This language message is explicitly addressed in the program which bemoans the fact that languages are disappearing on the globe and so forth.
The charm of the play is, however, not insignificant and lies in the stagecraft. The sound of hearing a French Kweebecker talking in English is quite beautiful. (I recall hearing - but never being able to find - a study that counterintuitively suggested that people like to hear people speak their language with a foreign accent, apparently we find the effort endearing.) The second successful staging element lies in the presentation of the individual as a multiplicity of identities. It breaks down the monotony of the one-man play and gives you a puzzle to try to figure out which actors represent which elements of the character. The other sensual element which delivered was the element of fantasy and horror, in which a nightmarish dream is described with distorted sound, costume and lighting which juxtaposes the trivial but charming babble in the first half hour of five-way monologue.
The message, regardless of whether it is one you embrace or not, is delivered with seductive flair and panache, and the use of language is disarming. The play was written in 1993 but performed in Anglaitsch for the first time in 1998. It is, overall, probably the best of the last 30 plays I have seen in Montreal, French and English.
So that brings me to this play Dragonfly of Chicoutimi now on at the Espace Go!, a French-venue on the Main, across from Casa del Popolo. The play is a one-man script but staged here with five actors sharing the lines, separated by square frames on a raised stage. Their accents are Quebecois but the words are English. So I kept wondering if the franco crowd could fully grasp the story. Apparently they did as the actors took three bows (not rare in French shows, whereas English audiences, usually older, grab for their coats, never giving more than one turn at applause).
The protagonist is a typical franco boy, one of nine children raised in Chicoutimi, a town he describes as boring. The narrator is split in five, (from right to left a short-haired guy who re-enacts descriptions of the mother, a tall rocker with a pony tail and Iggy Pop abs, a slight blonde in a sharkskin suit, a cowboy with a moustache and finally a bearded guy who mostly lies on stage, basket-case style.)
The narrative describes growing up in Chicoutimi, first with some self-aggrandizement, but later corrected to apologetically amend the dishonestly rosy spin. Without giving away too much, the story tells of how he ended up speaking English after having a horrendous dream. That dream, in turn, was inspired by a horrific encounter he had when 16 playing in the woods with a childhood friend who was only 12 but still dominant. That friend had an English Canadian father and out of the blue one day the friend started abusing him horribly, while speaking English. The English guy did not fare too well after that moment nor did the protagonist.
The political message is clear, The Henglatch is not to be trusted and that it would be a tragedy if the French people of Quebec started all speaking the language of Joe Pesci. This language message is explicitly addressed in the program which bemoans the fact that languages are disappearing on the globe and so forth.
The charm of the play is, however, not insignificant and lies in the stagecraft. The sound of hearing a French Kweebecker talking in English is quite beautiful. (I recall hearing - but never being able to find - a study that counterintuitively suggested that people like to hear people speak their language with a foreign accent, apparently we find the effort endearing.) The second successful staging element lies in the presentation of the individual as a multiplicity of identities. It breaks down the monotony of the one-man play and gives you a puzzle to try to figure out which actors represent which elements of the character. The other sensual element which delivered was the element of fantasy and horror, in which a nightmarish dream is described with distorted sound, costume and lighting which juxtaposes the trivial but charming babble in the first half hour of five-way monologue.
The message, regardless of whether it is one you embrace or not, is delivered with seductive flair and panache, and the use of language is disarming. The play was written in 1993 but performed in Anglaitsch for the first time in 1998. It is, overall, probably the best of the last 30 plays I have seen in Montreal, French and English.
Is that really the message? Sounds like a bad-tripy psychedelic way to pitch it...
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